My Review of FFXIV. Because it was too long for Steam's review.

[The Blue Moon]

7.5/10

TL;DR: I liked the game, but it takes too much of your time to get to the actual good stuff. Plus, personal preferences made the game worse for me. I played till 6.0. Which is the ending of End Walker but didn’t play more after.
Play the game with Friends but don’t come here expecting a fast way to get a good story. Also, the community is great, I only met a few toxic players in my time there and don’t go with people’s taste in characters, either they are horny about them or they are biased due to some fact or etc, though there are some good characters.
The end game is great. Gameplay subpar. Customization is beyond great. Skill expression is non-existent. PVP is a joke but a fun joke. This is a single player set in a MMORPG, you can play to the end and barely have to talk or interact with people.

Story Review (Spoiler free part)
Although at the start you are literally killing bugs and rats, like any other RPG, you end-up killing some kind of all powerful entity at the end. To be honest though, the game’s story is fantastic. But it’s too bloated with side stuff and minor quest objectives, I have 500 hours and pretty sure 200 hours of it were side quests and objectives with 150 being the story and the rest being Queue times and me grinding other classes which I’ll talk about.
Although most games don’t even mention side story quest lines, FFXIV gives a small nod to the side quest lines and even brings characters from that questline. The Crystal tower Quest line which you get to at level 50 is the most “important” one, for spoiler-free reasons I won’t say why.
And I’m not saying I care too much about missing small nods to content I did before doing the rest of the Main Questline, but the side content is too big to be honest, the stories of the side quests go from 8/10 to 3/10 as you progress the game, imo. And I had little incentive to do them due to Queue timers and honestly boring questlines.
Thing is with the Main Questline is that it’s a good story, really, if you haven’t watched at least a few anime and played a few RPGs. And even then, the big highlights are a real treat. But honestly, I had a hard time to even invest myself in the characters. I liked them, but I wouldn’t care if they died. They have great characters and honestly, their developments are great to watch, but some developments were really strange to witness and barely have any consequences to their actions, the characters don’t disagree on anything and are easily convinced to do the “Right Thing for the Story”. I barely remember the times the characters fought if not for a major point in the plot. The maximum of character tension I saw wasn’t really ideals (Except the really obvious ones) but emotional tension, characters not talking with each other about their emotions, otherwise, they barely even raise their voices to anything else. I hope you know this but, people really fight for the dumbest things, for things they want, for things they think are right, and yes, I know there’s a small part of the Main questline where we deal with a character dealing with a thing they think they are right. But… it's really nothing noteworthy.
One of the warnings I’ll give you is that you can’t do anything to change an outcome, tell a character about something, tell them they are wrong on something or discuss something IF, BIG IF, the story tells that character they are wrong, then you’ll just give them a slap in the wrist but by that time, you’ll just affirm their doubts about their idea being wrong. Forget it if you came from any DnD inspired games. There’s only the illusion of choice, even if you pick the “Bad” Choice, the characters won’t go farther than talk about it on two speech bubbles. Which is really annoying to be honest. Also, there’s really awesome moments in the story where you realize something and then the characters do the same, but here's the really annoying part, the smart character or the character who realized the same as you won’t really talk about it until it’s about to pay-off. At the end of the story, even though the game was throwing confetti at my face to tell me how awesome I was, I really only felt like an errand boy and a sellsword and sometimes a spectator.
One thing I’ll tell you, I really reaaaaaalllyyy dislike culture masturbation, like I get it Japan, your culture is really neat, yes, yukata. Wow. so pretty. You are so much better than any other country (Insert factual stab here). Did you really need to make half of an expansion about your culture?
I want to tell you to skip Stormblood, really. I do. But various characters are a call back to their time there. But honestly, I can barely remember Stormblood other than characters which come back for a nod or two. And don’t let anyone convince you ARR is bad, they are just pampered by the later points of the story, ARR-Post is really even better. It’s great. I would play ARR over StormBlood.
To be real here, my main problem with StormBlood is the point already made, it really drags it and I’m not kidding. The other expansions are really great, End Walker being the highest point I had in the story like everyone tells it will be.

-Spoiler part-
Honestly, the part where Alphinaud gets his ♥♥♥♥ kicked in and as a player, we feel the loss of characters from ARR to Heavensward is great. Nanamo dying should’ve been a permanent, she’s the few characters who was with the player from the beginning (if you start at Ul’dah). But alas, can’t have a cute favorite character dying, somehow she survives even though the Crystal Brave’s take over, Teledji and Lolorito both can’t make a move otherwise the Crystal Brave’s would think they were betraying them but they save her anyway. The thing with Main Cast characters dying is that I never ever felt worried about them. Like Y’shtola, she ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dies every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ expansion. It’s not even funny at that point, she turns into Kenny from South park at some point. Either characters who are briefly introduced die too early or they place more death flags that you can’t see their faces. You won’t get invested into the Characters, because you can see they will die, either they have the most generic looking faces or they are a bit too plain ‘unique’. It’s annoying.

Also, what the ^!#!?@^% did they do to Alisaie’s character? When you get into ShadowBringers, she’s basically the stock crying character. The ending’s area quest line is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ funny too. Every time a character is about to sacrifice themselves, even though it’s obvious as ♥♥♥♥, “NOOOOOOOOOO!!! *Cry stock Alisae soundbite*”. Also, it puts me off how the sound is of her crying with her mouth blocked, but she’s not putting her hands in front of her face, which would be in character. Alisaie is a proud type character, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her crying but everyone who knew her would know she’s doing so. Yet, she lays her grief to everyone to see, even to people she doesn’t know.
The lack of affection shown in actions is also off-putting. Characters don’t really hug each other too often even though the situation calls for it. (I swear, I was screaming at the top of my lungs for Ryne to hug Thancred when he finally opened up while she’s crying). Maybe the model of them hugging was a hassle to program in cause when the characters do hug, there’s a cut and they don’t really stop hugging until the cutscene cuts to black. But it’s frustrating how little affection the characters show each other with action even in private, sure, they say stuff like “I really respect you and really like you.” in a roundabout way or not, but it’s frustrating to see characters not letting go of their serious posture for not even for a moment.
Talking about characters, Y’shtola, I dislike her character. She went from the ones who try to figure things out into exposure dump type character. Like annoyingly-so, Hydaelyn’s dying, but here’s Y’shtola to ruin the moment with her extremely-detailed-question-so-the-player-who-didn’t-pay-attention-or-doesn’t-remember kind of moment and Funny enough, Hydaelyn just goes “Yes” with a look that she didn’t pay any attention to what was said to her. And it goes back to the sad moment, can this character give it a break? Also, everyone’s so damn thirsty for this character that even the dev’s give options to call her mommy. Even though she barely shows any care about the player other than worry. Urianger, or Uryangerrrrr, is a character rushed for development in the end, as the devs realized he went through two expansions without much involvement except with Shiva, a close friend of his dies but he still doesn’t even show a moment of grief, hell, he and Alisaie only get development in the Bahamut side quests of ARR.
Thancred is okay, his development is steady, nothing surprising about him. He goes through, basically, depression and learns to let himself out a bit to his friends. Estinien is great, he takes no ♥♥♥♥♥ but is also goofy, which is nice since he was a Hard-ass in the beginning. But he doesn’t go through much development but just reminding that he can trust Alphinaud and the WOL. I find it strange that even though he specifically states he only trusts these two, nobody takes issue with it. Alisie mentions it but is quickly shot down by Urianger and Tataru.
Krile is strange, because for me the game tried to pass her as this character we should be sympathetic to due to her losing her echo. But I really had a hard time since she seemed to be doing well on her own. Tataru is the same, she wants to be fighting with us but with her being unable to be good at fighting, she gives up and resolves herself to set herself at the backline.
Alphinaud is the main character, you can’t tell me otherwise, he goes through things more than you. He does more than you, he’s mostly involved with most quests. But he doesn’t rob you of your highlight (If it doesn’t involve fighting the Primal or God. Or whatever). I really hate how the game keeps repeating the point that he grew up by talking with the people instead at them. They repeat this point like it’s a badge of honor, you don’t see people point out that someone grew up for more than one time or two. But the game makes this point five times and more if I paid attention to the side questlines
Also, the Warrior of light barely even touches the characters, they don't touch them at all. And I know, it’s because of how customizable the characters are, also the difference of races, that these kinds of scenes don’t happen, except for the ending due to it being mo-cap and it delayed the expansion. Also, the characters don’t really touch you, so I guess it goes both ways. The WoL goes through development (?) but honestly, it’s self interpreted, they just get comfortable with the Scions.
Do I even need to tell you how great Hydaelyn’s story is? Or how good Emet-selch is? No, of course not.

[Dadoosan]

Opprinnelig skrevet av galacticcorgi:

And I'm skipping you because clearly you wouldn't know. A summary isn't the same as the actual story.

The story is much more enjoyable as a Youtube summary than it is actually playing through it. Buy a story skip to the end, watch the cutscenes on Youtube. That's currently the best way of experiencing this game. And that's super telling.

[Axetwin]

Opprinnelig skrevet av GoreTiger:

YoshiP charges extra on purpose, because this game is not a dungeon crawler and they want you to experience the MSQ.
This is why I hate hardcore raiders in mmos. They would throw out 99% of what makes a game great just so they can endlessly grind that 1% of dungeon content.
I blame dark souls for this mentality tbh.

This is not a Dark Souls issue. It's a WoW one. That game started the whole "this game doesn't start until you hit max level and every thing you do before that is unimportant" game philosophy that MMO's have been shackled with ever since.

[Drakzen]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Dadoosan:

Opprinnelig skrevet av galacticcorgi:

And I'm skipping you because clearly you wouldn't know. A summary isn't the same as the actual story.

The story is much more enjoyable as a Youtube summary than it is actually playing through it. Buy a story skip to the end, watch the cutscenes on Youtube. That's currently the best way of experiencing this game. And that's super telling.

Then die to simple mechanics and call the game bad.....that's how that usually goes.

[BigJ]

Experiencwd the MSQ, well till heavensward because it takes time and the story is rhe best, sure it doesn't get good till about lvl 20 quests, but the rest is great.

The dungeons are decent with some clearly better and more mechanic based than others.

Alliance raids are great ego boosts for tanks/healers.

And I'm even enjoying miner sinply because I can make my own prisms with blacksmith at 26 and do some 1 player treasure hunting, minigames ain't bad either.

The game is to be taken slow, no rush to the end (can't reach it anyway as a free trial), if you can't do this, then I suggest you stay away. It's a game with a lot of different things to do outside of dailies that are done rather fast.

[Dadoosan]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Drakzen:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Dadoosan:

The story is much more enjoyable as a Youtube summary than it is actually playing through it. Buy a story skip to the end, watch the cutscenes on Youtube. That's currently the best way of experiencing this game. And that's super telling.

Then die to simple mechanics and call the game bad.....that's how that usually goes.

Not sure how walking from one NPC to another between the cutscenes helps you learn how to play the game. If you haven't played the game, you should know there are target dummies and class guides out there.

You'll save lots of time by just watching cutscenes on YouTube or just skipping and learning your class.

[Moxy]

Not having an option to skip most of the story to get to the latest expansion is a huge turn off for me, personally. No one should have to grind for hours and hours and hours to get to the meat of the game and enjoy it with everyone else.

[GoreTiger]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Moxy:

Not having an option to skip most of the story to get to the latest expansion is a huge turn off for me, personally. No one should have to grind for hours and hours and hours to get to the meat of the game and enjoy it with everyone else.

You can skip every expansion with a story skip bought from the store.
The game's main focus is the main story, The rest is side content. The story is the meat of the game.

[Axetwin]

Opprinnelig skrevet av GoreTiger:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Moxy:

Not having an option to skip most of the story to get to the latest expansion is a huge turn off for me, personally. No one should have to grind for hours and hours and hours to get to the meat of the game and enjoy it with everyone else.

You can skip every expansion with a story skip bought from the store.
The game's main focus is the main story, The rest is side content. The story is the meat of the game.

Which has got me thinking, why make this an MMO then? Don't get me wrong, MMO's can have a focus on the narrative, games like The Old Republic, Guild Wars 1 and 2 do. However, this game forgets it needs to have actual gameplay inbetween the story beats. The 15-20 minutes you spend in a dungeon in between the 2 hours of cutscenes doesn't cut it. Why make this an MMO if the only thing that matters is the story? Why write a story that directly contradicts the aspects of the MMO?

[FreshMint]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Axetwin:

Opprinnelig skrevet av GoreTiger:

You can skip every expansion with a story skip bought from the store.
The game's main focus is the main story, The rest is side content. The story is the meat of the game.

Which has got me thinking, why make this an MMO then? Don't get me wrong, MMO's can have a focus on the narrative, games like The Old Republic, Guild Wars 1 and 2 do. However, this game forgets it needs to have actual gameplay inbetween the story beats. The 15-20 minutes you spend in a dungeon in between the 2 hours of cutscenes doesn't cut it. Why make this an MMO if the only thing that matters is the story? Why write a story that directly contradicts the aspects of the MMO?

Consuming the story like the usual RPG, but with social aspects for battle content and especially on the side.
Some people already are happy to just hang out outside of content time.